DOVER-FOXCROFT – When company officials told Robert Morey that his job would be eliminated in April 1999 before the closing of the Dexter Shoe factory in Milo, he was in shock.

“God, now what do I do?” he asked himself.

Having spent 27 years at Dexter Shoe Co., most recently as a foreman, and nearing 50 years of age, he worried because the production of shoes was his only trade.

At about the same time that Morey received his pink slip, a group of economic development officials was addressing the county’s declining population, sensing the need for some kind of higher-learning institution in Piscataquis County. That need, also identified by Eastern Maine Technical College, was based not only on keeping the workers in the county by retraining them for other jobs but also on providing high school graduates with a choice.

Armed with a concept and a commitment from EMTC, the officials trouped to Augusta where they convinced Gov. Angus King to support an education center and the Legislature to appropriate $1.7 million for the center’s development in the former Mayo Street Elementary School building.

What they managed to hatch – the Penquis Training and Education Center, or P-TECH, in Dover-Foxcroft – has helped Morey and others like him across the county to adjust and to pursue the needed education for other avenues of trade.

Today, Morey is a full-time radiographer at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, after having completed 21/2 years of college. Although this is only his second week on the job, the Milo man said Tuesday that he finds it pleasant and rewarding thanks to P-TECH.

“They [P-TECH] gave me the means to do it [study for another job],” Morey said. “Whatever I needed, they took care of; what they did, they made it easier for me.”

The training center, which is owned and operated by EMTC and the University of Maine System, offers college-level courses and work force training locally in towns within the Penquis region, according to Helen Kelley, a senior staff assistant at the center.

The Penquis college center offers regional access to higher education in a variety of selected fields such as early childhood development and education, health care programs, computer technologies, manufacturing technologies, and business management, Kelly said Tuesday.

Kelly said the college works closely with local businesses to promote economic development within the Penquis region, and provides customized learning opportunities and programs for gainful employment in technical fields. Specialized programs also can be designed to meet the specific needs of a business, she noted.

Additionally, the center administers the University of Maine at Augusta’s Interactive Television sites in Dexter, Dover-Foxcroft, Greenville, Guilford, Hermon, Jackman and Newport.

Although P-TECH is in operation at temporary quarters at 50 North St., the center itself is far from complete. Remodeling is under way at the former school that will provide eight classrooms, a conference facility, a public gymnasium, the offices of the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council and Virtual Business Information Center, and Mayo Regional Hospital’s cardiac rehabilitation unit.

In celebration of the center, a groundbreaking will be held for P-TECH on Aug. 4 during Dover-Foxcroft’s Homecoming celebration.

And it is very likely that Morey will be there to help celebrate the county’s first postsecondary institution.

“It’s quite a change; you’ve got to be willing to change,” Morey said of his midlife crisis. “Don’t give up – there’s something out there for you, and the help is there, too.”